Nozomi V3: I has a new theme

And I has a new theme, as what the title implies. Yes I do know it has been some time since I launched this theme. But first, let’s look at how the site was in the past.

Over here’s is when I was still using Nozomi V2.

There were several reasons why I had stopped using Nozomi V2; the major reason being that it was rather hard to modify, since it was based off the K2 theme architecture.

Secondly, it wasn’t compatible with WordPress 2.5 and above, resulting in it crashing and parsing errors, which also means that I would be spending more time trying to figure out what went wrong and finding solutions instead of generating new articles. Searching for solutions back then was a lot harder as I was still very new to PHP and often didn’t know what I was editing till it was too late ^^;

Another reason was that I didn’t like how the landing page (main page) was. Readers would have to scroll all the waaaay down just to navigate to the previous page for older articles– not good navigation there.

Overview

Nozomi V3, the new theme, solved this as it is more of a magazine-like theme.

The site looks a lot neater and more organized now. It also allows you guys to navigate much more easily around the site. The latest content would be displayed on top, with the post top image as an eye catch. Older articles get a smaller 293 x 293 thumbnail. Tentatively have 8 older articles on display. Will increase or decrease it when necessary.

Single Posts

Single posts now have a 2 column layout, which makes them much more readable as compared to the 3 column layout where I had to squeeze the post in between the sidebars. Having this new layout also means that I will be able to display larger images instead of the chummy 450px that was used in the past (In the process of implementing).

Think of it as the valley between a set of oppai ^^;

Navigation thumbs on the right side of a current post which allows readers to view the previous or next post. The right sidebar is kind of empty at the moment and will be throwing in some features and stuff there. Perhaps a short article link ^^;

Development Process

The time frame for developing Nozomi V3 actually spanned over several months. I had originally wanted to expand it from Nozomi V2 (K2 based theme) but ever since K2 decided to drop the support on sidebar manager, a really awesome widget manager plugin for wordpress, there wasn’t a point to continue using the theme.

Spent countless of hours during my off time from army to search for a more suitable theme at allows me to display more articles without cluttering the landing page and found The Unstandard theme at last. Liked the theme and decided to modify it to suit my needs. Will be adding more features here and there in the future. Am currently looking at a short article feature where I can blog smaller articles which do not fit as a full article.

There is a lot more I would like to talk about the theme, but I decide not to bore you guys and instead, let you guys explore the site ^^. Will continue to improve on the use experience.

Btw, does anyone have any recommendations for books on picking up CSS?